Mane Six vs. Handsome Jack

by Newbiespud

Prologue

So, you want to hear a story, huh? One filled with action, drama, suspense, intrigue, and – most importantly – ponies?

If not, too bad – I'm telling you anyway.

First, there was the Vault: an alien prison opened by a mystical key. To the warriors who opened it, the Vault was just a container of tentacles and disappointment. They vanished into the wastelands, certain that the Vault held no treasure at all. They were wrong.

The Vault's opening triggered the growth of Eridium, a priceless alien element. Soon, the rare and valuable mineral emerged all across the world of Pandora. Its appearance attracted many, including... the Hyperion corporation. They came to Pandora to mine Eridium, and bring order to the savage planet.

Through their excavations, Hyperion uncovered evidence of an even greater Vault. Their leader vowed to find it – to use its power to civilize the Borderlands, once and for all.

But Hyperion weren't the only ones searching for the next Vault's alien power.

Far, far away, in the magical world of Equestria, the leaders of the pony nation took notice of the events on Pandora. To them, the discovery of the Vault was not an invitation... but a threat. The Vault, and the conflict surrounding it, would disrupt the harmony of the entire universe if left unchecked. So, to find a solution, a team of Equestria's most skilled ponies was sent to Pandora.

On their world, they are known as the Elements of Harmony. Others call them the Mane Six. But I... call them Vault Hunters.

Our story begins with them, and with a man named Handsome Jack...

Over the last 10 miles, Rainbow Dash had proved one thing: She was faster than the train. It was all she'd thought about since the six of them left Equestria: Was she faster than the spaceships? Was she faster than the cars and the trains? Was she faster than the other aerial vehicles? Well, the spaceships had her beat, but Rainbow Dash was still the fastest thing in-atmosphere so far.

She was currently flying high above a desert area further down the line, gliding around while she waited for the train to catch up. Looking down, she could see a black speck slowly crawling forward across the sand. Rainbow Dash lowered her altitude a bit and saw that it was one of the ugly dog-like creatures of Pandora – a skag.

As she moved closer, another grayish shape racing across the desert, a truck of some kind, came by and smacked the skag aside with a powerful impact. Rainbow Dash whistled in response – that looked painful. But then the skag got its leg caught in a loose chain connected to the truck, and started to get dragged along at speed across the sand. Rainbow Dash couldn't help but chuckle at the ridiculousness of it.

She followed the truck from high above, making sure not to draw any attention to herself. The truck was packed to the brim with humans, all of them wearing masks, menacing clothes, and/or body paint. The ponies hadn't been outside of Equestria long, but they'd seen enough humans on their way here to know the nice ones from the mean ones, and these looked downright nasty.

That was all the thought Rainbow Dash had time to process before she noticed the train tracks ahead of the truck. And remembered that the train was due to catch up to her any second now.

Before she knew it, the train had plowed straight through the truck, sending bandits flying in all directions. The train kept chugging along as if nothing had happened, but the mashed-up car flipped end over end before landing on top of the moving train.

Rainbow Dash just stared, slack-jawed at what just happened, before putting on a sheepish grin. "Hehe, whoops." That was probably her cue to get back to the others. She dove down towards the train, picking up speed in order to catch up and land on it safely.

Inside the train, Applejack rubbed a sore spot on her head caused by a bump against the wall. "Yeesh. What the hay did we hit?"

Rarity moved Applejack's hoof aside and took a look at the injury. It didn't look like anything more than a bruise. "At least it didn't derail the train," she pointed out. "It seems human engineering is good for something after all."

Fluttershy took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. "Oh gosh... I don't think I could take another scare like that..."

"Next stop: Windshear Waste," a female automated voice announced throughout the train. The scenery outside the train shifted from a desert wasteland to a snowy wasteland. "All Vault Hunters, please prepare to disembark."

"Ooh, ooh, ooh!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed excitedly, bouncing up and down. "That's us! That's us, right? We're Vault Hunters, right?"

Twilight smiled and levitated her copy of The Bookworm's Guide to Modern Technology back into her saddlebags. "Yes, that's us, Pinkie."

Applejack peered out one of the windows. "Really?" she asked. "This place is our stop?"

Pinkie looked up at the sign above them that said “WELCOME VAULT HUNTERS” with a man's smiling face next to the next. The man looked like most of his face was a clipped-on mask, but it was an otherwise inviting and unremarkable blue-and-yellow sign.

“Yyyyep, that's who we are!” Pinkie Pie declared, mock-saluting at the sign. “Vault Hunter Ponies Extraordinaire, reporting for duty!”

Then the sign fell away to reveal another sign beneath it. “TO YOUR DOOM (nothing personal)” The man's face was sneering now, and the blue and yellow had been replaced with red and orange flames.

Pinkie Pie lowered her hoof. “Huh?”

All five ponies looked below the sign, towards the back of the train car. The two yellow crates that had been sitting there the entire ride were now moving, folding outward into blocky robotic forms.

Both robots had guns in their hands.

“RUN!” Twilight Sparkle (as The Element of Magic) yelled. The other four ponies got behind her and scattered the best they could. Twilight's unicorn horn glowed, and a purple barrier of magic appeared between the robots and her. The robots fired their guns, but the bullets simply bounced off the barrier as though it were a solid wall. In retaliation, Twilight fired two magical blasts at the robots, striking them both in the head.

Behind her, Rarity (as The Element of Generosity) encountered several more robots powering up in the next train car. She ducked behind what little cover there was and levitated an arrow out of her saddlebags. As Rarity concentrated, an ethereal bow formed from her magic materialized around the arrow, nocking it against an ethereal string.

A half-second later, she pulled the arrow back and released, sending the arrow straight through the AI core of the robot in front of her. The robot immediately powered down and collapsed.

There were still more robots in front of her, too many to deal with one-by-one in that way. But Pinkie Pie (as The Element of Laughter) rushed past her at that moment, pushing her patented Party Cannon forward.

As soon as the robots were within range, the pink pony pressed down on the fuse. A massive burst of confetti and streamers shot out of the cannon, and the sheer force of the blast knocked the robots over. Pinkie Pie followed it up by bouncing repeatedly on the robots' heads, making sure they wouldn't be getting back up to counterattack.

Applejack (as The Element of Honesty) went on ahead and found another, bigger robot readying its weapons at her. Thinking quick, the earth pony twirled her lasso, threw it around one of the robot's guns, and tugged as hard as she could.

The robot's big gun fired right afterward and blasted one of the doors off the train car. Applejack then dug her hooves in and yanked even harder. The robot was thrown off balance and stumbled... right out of the door it had just opened, tumbling into the frozen wastes beyond.

Meanwhile, Fluttershy (as The Element of Kindness) had fled to the roof of the train car, where there didn't seem to be any murderous robots around. But while she cowered out in the open, a couple of men wearing bright yellow armor leaped up there and made a menacing approach. The men looked angry, and their armor seemed to have other weapons attached.

Fluttershy saw them, saw nowhere else to run, and summoned up all her courage. The Hyperion engineers were subjected to an incredibly intense glare from the shy yellow pony, and the sheer piercing nature of it made the two men stop in their tracks.

While they were distracted, a rainbow streak came out of nowhere and slammed into one of the armored men, knocking him off the train entirely. The other man was given the same treatment in less than a second. Fluttershy took a deep breath, and looked up as Rainbow Dash (as The Element of Loyalty) landed in front of her.

“You alright?” Rainbow Dash asked. Fluttershy just nodded. The rainbow pony nodded back and said, “Let's go.”

Back inside the train, Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity had managed to make their way to a closed door. There was little doubt there would be more robots on the other side. As the unicorns and earth ponies gathered in front of it, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash flew in from outside.

“So what's the deal with these robot guys?” Rainbow Dash inquired casually as she dropped in.

“Trap,” was Applejack's simple reply.

Rainbow Dash groaned. “Horseapples.”

Twilight Sparkle looked back at her friends. “Are we ready?” When she got a bunch of affirmative looks, she faced forward and kicked the door open.

The inside of the car was relatively dark. The internal lights were off and the window blinds were tilted, meaning that the train car was lit only by stripes of blue light from outside.

In the center of the car, right in front of them, was a human figure sitting in a chair. But on second glance, that was clearly not the case. Judging by the metal joints and coils jutting out from the figure, the only thing sitting in the chair was a metal doll made to look like a person.

A few seconds after the door had been kicked open, the chair swiveled around to face them. The fake man looked exactly like the man in the sign from earlier. It had the same sick sneer plastered on its face.

In the doll's lap was a bundle of dynamite attached to a timer. And there was a lot more dynamite stacked up behind the chair. A LOT more dynamite. A ridiculous amount, even.

Twilight Sparkle barely heard Applejack shouting for them to run as the doll began to speak.

“It's cute that y'all think you're the heroes of this little adventure, but you're not.”

Twilight just stared at the man's cruel visage, taking in his words, just trying to comprehend. What kind of person would do such a thing?

“Welcome to Pandora, kiddos.”

Finally, Twilight turned to move, to run away as fast as she could.

And that's when everything exploded.